Category: Ecology

This is section 4.2 in the book “Biology: Dynamics of Life”. Now that I’ve dealt with the topic of Biodiversity and shown how important it is to life in general, it’s time to look at some of the efforts that are made in order to preserve Biodiversity

In this section, I talk about the problem of Vanishing Species. The topic is Biodiversity, which is a measure of the number of species in a certain area. Biodiversity is extremely important because it adds beauty, provides stability and because life depends on life

This video is from Chapter 4 in the Book “Biology: The Dynamics of Life”. It talks about population growth as it relates to Human Populations. It’s a basic introduction to the field of demographics (human population growth), and shows the 3 factors that demographers are concerned with: Growth Rate, Age Structure and Geographic distribution. Growth Rate is determined by Birth and Death rate. Age structure has to do with the proportions of a population at the different age levels, and geographic distribution deals with the topics of immigration and emigration.

This video is from Chapter 4 in the Book “Biology: The Dynamics of Life”. In it, I cover the topic of population dynamics, looking at HOW populations grow, and what how their growth is influenced by various factors. It starts with a comparison of the different types of growth (linear vs. exponential), and then goes into topics like Limiting factors and Carrying capacity. We then talk about different reproductive patterns and predation.

Biomes are a broader category of organization that share the same climax community. In this section, I deal with the two categories of Biomes: Aquatic Biomes and Terrestrial Biomes. The aquatic biomes include the freshwater and marine environments, and the terrestrial biomes include the Tundra, Taiga, Temperate Forests, Deserts, Grasslands and Tropical Rain Forests. Watch this video to learn about these biomes, including the types of plants and animals we find in those biomes.

In this section, I talk about communities. It’s a part of the chapter entitled Communities and Biomes from the textbook Biology: The Dynamics of Life. Join me as I explore the relationships between the populations of a community. I then go into the concept of tolerance and show how Limiting factors can restrict the size of a population. The topic of Primary and Secondary succession is also dealt with, and I show how those processes result in the formation of a climax community. Enjoy!

All organisms (living things) require energy in order to do ANYTHING. Where does all this energy come from? Well, go ahead and watch those videos and you will find out. In the lecture, I talk about the source of energy, producers vs. consumers, the different types of heterotrophs and a number of other details.

Organisms do not exist in isolation. In fact, they depend on other organisms AND also nonliving things. These interactions are necessary for life to exist and we notice that, in nature, a change in one population affects other populations in an ecosystem. This is something that can lead to interesting consequences.